Charlotte Magazine – July 2019

JUNE 2019 // CHARLOTTE 63

IT’S COOKING DAY for Zack Werner.
Today, he’ll make 100 pounds of pulled
pork from powder.
Werner dutifully smokes it, slathers it
with sauce, and shreds it. The only dif-
ference between Werner’s recipe and
traditional barbecue? There’s no pork.
It’s vegan, made from wheat and soy
protein powder.
“With a little science and magic, it
becomes „brous. We take that and
treat it like barbecue,” Werner says. “We
smoke it, sauce it, pull it, and try to keep
it as much like pork as we can—except
without the pig.”
Along with Lee Cooper, Werner owns
Barvecue, a Cornelius-based wholesale
kitchen. Since last year, they’ve sold
plant-based “barbecue” to retailers like
Earth Fare, Berrybrook Farm Natural
Foods, and a number of other natural
food markets as far away as Vancouver,
British Columbia.
Cooper runs most of the business side
of Barvecue, while Werner—who has a
degree in food science from Michigan
State University—cooks and creates the
recipes. While their clientele includes
vegans and vegetarians, they serve quite
a few omnivores, too.
“We wanted to create great-tasting,
high-quality food,” Cooper says, “that just
happened to be plant-based.”
It wasn’t always this way, of course.
In 2017, Werner was selling trailers, and
Cooper had just sold his industrial valve
company. Werner’s wife, Andy, is a spe-
cial education teacher, and she works
with Cooper’s daughter, Ana. The two
were introduced and got to talking (over
food, of course) and decided to start a
vegan barbecue company. A month later,
the pair applied for trademarks.
Werner tried tofu (too crumbly, too

so˜), jackfruit (not nutritious

enough), and a dozen sauces

before he found the combina-

tion, texture, and taste that could

mimic North Carolina barbe-

cue. They wanted it to appeal to

everyone, not just vegans.

I’ve nixed meat from my meals

since 2002, and I went vegan in

2008, so getting me on board

with vegan pulled pork wasn’t

hard. But what about a meat-eating Char-

lottean? In a state fueled by barbecue and

divided by its sauce, I wanted to „nd out:

Could a vegan and a meat-eater put aside

their diet diœerences for a meal?

On a rainy day in March, I met a friend

at Barvecue’s industrial-sized kitchen for

some good, ol’-fashioned vegan barbecue.

Barvecue oœers only takeout, but, on

this wet day, Werner and Cooper told us

to grab a stool and stay awhile. Soon, we

each had a heaping bowl of stringy, cara-

mel-colored “meat,” coleslaw, sauce, and

two Asheville-baked hamburger buns in

front of us.

We got to talking about what two

new friends in Charlotte always do:

their jobs, their kids (dogs, on my part),

how they ended up here, and why they

decided to stay. She asked me, like most

non-vegans do but vegans never do,

where do I eat in Charlotte? What do I

cook for dinner?

I told her I go everywhere she goes.

Vegetarian options are everywhere

nowadays.

The owners sat down to chat with

us, and my meat-eating companion

said she wouldn’t know the diœerence

if they had told her this was actually

pulled pork instead of soy „bers mas-

querading as meat.

We chatted more about her children,

we laughed a lot, and then she whis-

pered to me that Barvecue’s thin sauce

was too sweet for her.

I exhaled, glad I wasn’t the one to

say it „rst. I, too, prefer thick, slow-as-

molasses, ketchup-heavy sauces, and

this was not that.

No matter how diœerent we are, if we

prefer pork from pig or powder, there

are still some things on which we can all

agree. —Jared Misner

In a polarized climate, can

we still bond over food?

Meat

in the

Middle

Barvecue’s

vegan pulled

pork, slaw, and

sauce are all

sold separately

to be prepared

at home.

Barvecue

owners Zack

Werner (le„)

and Lee Cooper

in their Cornelius

wholesale

kitchen.